.htaccess mod_rewrite issue

Almost in any project 开发者_如何学CI work on, some issues with .htaccess occur. I usually just find the easiest solution and leave it because I don't have any knowledge or understanding for Apache, servers etc. But this time I thought I would ask you guys.

This is the files and folders in my (simplified) setup:

/modrewrite-test
    .htaccess
    /config
    /inc
    /lib
    /public_html
        .htaccess
        /cms
            /navigation
                index.php
                edit.php
            /pages
                index.php
                edit.php
        login.php
        page.php

The "config", "inc" and "lib" folders are meant to be "hidden" from the root of the website. I try to accomplish this by making a .htaccess-file in the root that redirects the user to "public_html". The .htacess-file contains this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule   (.*) public_html/$1

This works perfect. If I type "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/login.php" in my browser, I end up in public_html/login.php which is my intention. So this works fine. The .htaccess-file in "public_html" contains this:

RewriteEngine On

# Root
RewriteRule   ^$ page.php [L]

# Login
RewriteRule   ^(admin)|(login)\/?$ login.php [L]

# Page (if not a file/directory)
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule   ^(.*)$ page.php?url=$1 [L]

The first rewrite just redirects me to public_html/page.php if I try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/". The next rewrite is just for the convenience of users trying to log in - so if they try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/admin" or "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/login" they will end up at the login.php-file. The third and last rewrite handles the rest of the requests. If I try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/bla/bla/bla" it will just redirect me to public_html/page.php (with the 'url' GET-variable set) instead of finding a folder called "la", containing a folder named "bla" and etc.

All of these things work perfect but a minor issues occurs when I for instance try to reach "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/cms/navigation" without a slash at the end of the URL. When I try to reach that page the browser is somehow redirected to "http://localhost/modrewrite-test/public_html/cms/navigation/". The correct page is shown but why does it get redirected and add the "public_html" part in the URL? The desired behavior is that the URL stays intact and that the page public_html/cms/navigation/index.php is shown.

The files and folders in the (simplified) can be found at http://highbars.com/modrewrite-test.zip

I ran into the same problem with "strange" redirects when trying to access existing directory without slash at end. In my case this redirection was done by mod_dir Apache module. To disable redirection I used DirectorySlash directive. Try putting in .htaccess files following string:

DirectorySlash Off

RewriteBase may help. Try this in public_html/.htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

Add the following to /modrewrite-test/.htaccess:

RewriteBase /modrewrite-test

Just to be on the safe side, I'd add the same rule also to /modrewrite-test/public_html/.htaccess. I found that having RewriteBase always set prevents a lot of potential problems in the future. This however means that you might need to update the values if you change the URI structure of your site.

Update:
I don't think that this is possible with your current folder structure. I believe that the problem is that existing subdirectories prevent rewrite rules from firing. Note the behavior please - everything works fine while you are working with non-existent files and directories, thanks to these two conditions:

RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

However if you try to open any index file from an existing subdirectory, you get redirected to .../public_html/.... Since you can properly open /modrewrite-test/cms/navigation/edit.php, I can only assume that the request is being overwritten by some Apache core directive, which adds slashes at end of folder URLs. Notice that everything works fine if you have an ending-slash at each URL (i.e. the Apache core directory does not need to "correct" your URL, thus everything gets rewritten by your own rewrite rules).

Suggested solution (unless anyone can advise better):

Change /modrewrite-test/public_html/.htaccess as follows:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /modrewrite-test

# Page (if not a file/directory)
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule   ^(.*)$ page.php?url=$1 [L]

Then Remove all PHP files from subfolders and use the Front Controller pattern, i.e. route all requests through your main page.php file and do not delegate anything down below.

You can then use the Factory pattern to initiate individual UIs (i.e. navigation/edit.php) directly from your main page.php file based on contents of $_GET['url'] (make sure to properly sanitize that).

Update #2:
This other post on StackOverflow advises on project structure used by Zend Framework - it essentially shows the approach which I suggested above. It is a valuable information asset regardless if you use Zend Framework or not.